WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Venom #19 by Donny Cates, Iban Coello, Rain Beredo and VC's Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
As Absolute Carnage enters its climax, the odds of saving the day from the newly empowered Cletus Kasady and his zealous army of followers appear completely stacked against the heroes of the Marvel Universe. With a growing cult of heroes and villains bonded their own Carnage symbiotes trying to awaken the dark god Knull by collecting codices from the spines of anyone who's ever hosted an alien symbiote, two major targets for the ravenous villain are Dylan Brock and Normie Osborn, the sons of Eddie Brock and Harry Osborn.
After adding the Maker, the evil Reed Richards from the Ultimate Universe, to his ranks, Carnage seemed poised to harvest the codices from the two young boys, with only the good symbiote Sleeper standing in his way.
With things turning increasingly desperate, Dylan agrees to bond with Sleeper to fight their way out against the symbiote-possessed Maker, but Sleeper encounters feedback preventing the bond, which it had never endured before. As the Avengers arrive to keep the Maker occupied in Venom #19, Dylan exhibits a previously unseen power to turn the tide of battle: Complete telepathic control over the Sleeper symbiote.
After assuming control of the symbiote, Dylan has Sleeper rejoin the fray in the form of a wolf, running alongside Hawkeye as the Avenging Archer makes a similar welcomed entrance.
Unlike most symbiotes, Sleeper has the ability to generate chemicals and other pheromones from its pores and Dylan uses the trait to great effect by creating napalm and spraying the Carnage-Maker hybrid with it. Sensing this vulnerability, Hawkeye uses a fire arrow to set the symbiote alight, capitalizing on the symbiote's vulnerability to flame and sending it retreating from the battle while the heroes regroup for the coming final battle against Carnage.
Reunited with Dylan, the boy relinquishes his hold over Sleeper. After lightly reprimanding Dylan for taking control of its body, Sleeper lauds the boy for taking full advantage of the symbiote's array of abilities, including shape-shifting and chemical generation -- Sleeper notes that it had never created napalm before, with the strategy proving game-changing against Maker. With Dylan admitting he's more of a cat person than a dog one, Sleeper transforms into a house cat as it continues to congratulate the boy for his quick thinking.
It was theorized earlier by Eddie that Dylan was conceived with his longtime love Anne Weying at a time after Eddie had bonded to the Venom symbiote. Given that bonding with a symbiote has far-reaching consequences to a host body even after separation as evidenced by the implanted codices, the traces of the Venom symbiote may given Dylan telepathic control of Venom's symbiote offspring. With Dylan apparently unable to control the Carnage symbiote bonded to the Maker, this ability could be limited, especially with Carnage now allegedly drawing power from Knull despite technically being an offspring of Venom.
As the heroes rally to confront Carnage and defeat the murderous supervillain and his cult of followers, they need to pull out all the stops as Cletus Kasady grows significantly more powerful with every codex that he absorbs. With the unique ability to control symbiotes, Dylan Brock has quickly gone from hapless target of Carnage to potentially the heroes' secret weapon against Cletus as the young boy grows more accustomed to his new power. And, at the very least, Dylan Brock has just gotten the most badass cat since the departure of Captain Marvel's pet, Goose.
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